It is probably not unreasonable to suggest that this album will either delight or horrify fans of arguably the twentieth century’s greatest pianist and one of its greatest composers. Those who are aghast might say that Rachmaninov and the piano are so inextricably linked and a work such as the Symphonic Dances so brilliantly orchestrated it is pointless trying to arrange them for another instrument; while those in favour could point out that the composer transcribed other peoples work for the piano, people have been doing this since time immemorial and all that matters is, does it work? The answer to which is—probably—yes. It is however worth bearing in mind that a full organ has a huge range and can create numerous special effects, so any arranger of a piano original is going to have to do a lot of filling out.

The Corelli Variations theme (which isn't by Corelli) sounds like a chorale, which suits the organ down to the ground, as do the beautiful coda and many of the short variations, but sometimes one misses the exquisite transparency of late Rachmaninov. In the second movement of the Symphonic Dances the high lying treble decoration that starts at about 3'40'' sounds kitsch, and there are occasions when you could be forgiven for thinking Dr Phibes is at the keyboard (although that is not necessarily a criticism), by way of compensation there is a certain grandeur of utterance it's all great fun and sometimes deliciously camp. In interpretive terms Jeremy Filsell is reliable, as opposed to inspired (he often sounds tentative in the Corelli Variations and the Symphonic Dances are too slow). Nonetheless, this is an issue that allows one to see a great composer in a new light, and as such is well-worth investigating.

Engineers have always had problems capturing the huge frequency response and dynamic range of the organ, but high definition sound and (when available) DSD native playback have enabled them to move beyond the compressed, dead, ersatz quality of 16bit silver discs, and the 24bit, 88.2kHz sound on this release is very impressive. The overall balance is nicely middle-distance (the Kimmel Centre organ boasts 6,938 pipes, which create a massive sense of depth and presence, so on first hearing the instrument may sound more distant than it actually is) there is some reverberation, but nothing that unnecessarily muddies the waters, the instruments pipes do appear to emanate from on-high in the more sepulchral passages (of which there are plenty) and the bass is firmly grounded and defined (the furniture in my flat was vibrating). The dynamic range is excellent, there is real presence, a sense of acoustic space and the innumerable instrumental timbres on offer are vividly recreated. It would have been nice to hear the organ played back in DSD native format because of its ability to almost emulate the finest analogue sound with an increased dynamic range, but I don’t think Signum—unlike more enterprising companies such as Channel Classics—offer alternative formats. Irrespective of this, the sound is very, very good, and worth hearing per se.